Another gem by O’Brien leads Shorewood past GP

SHORELINE — Riley O’Brien tossed another five innings of shutout baseball and Shorewood pounded out 17 hits to beat Glacier Peak 11-0 in six innings in a Wesco 3A South game.

It was O’Brien’s third consecutive start in which the Shorewood starter didn’t allow a run through five innings. The previous two were complete-game no hitters. Against the Grizzlies, O’Brien finally surrendered a hit in the bottom of the fifth, prompting Thunderbirds head coach Wyatt Tonkin to give someone else a chance. Cole McKisson came in and took care of Glacier Peak in the sixth and the Thunderbirds remained undefeated on the season.

“Both other starters went the distance in the other two outings,” said Tonkin, referring to the fact that only three of his pitchers had seen time on the mound recently.

“Our pitching staff is more than I possibly thought. … This is a unique team here so far. I kind of don’t want to jinx us. They’ve really bought into what we’ve been asking them. It’s a very very unselfish group.”

Shorewood did its job offensively as well, getting doubles from Avery Foltz and Ben Andrews, who was 2-for-3 on the night.

The key for O’Brien seemed to be groundballs rather than strikeouts. He illicited 10 of them in the game.

“(O’Brien) had a pretty good sink to his ball tonight. He had good command of both his curve all and his fastball,” said Tonkin.